He spoke evenly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need a hot shower and a hot meal and unless you ladies and gentlemen would like to join me for both those things, I need to ask you to kindly leave.”
The Special Agent in Charge placed her card on the worn wood table. “We expect that you’ll remain in town.”
Charlie McGuinness let go with a belly laugh. “I expect I will, too, miss. I was born in this town sixty-nine years ago, and they’ll bury me next to the beautiful Ginny Dickinson McGuinness one day, not a mile down the road.”
“You know what I mean,” the agent said. “We’ll be in touch.”
Richard remained seated as the federal agents filed through the hall and out the front door. Once the crowd dispersed, he could see that his attorney and chief of staff remained in the dining room. Richard motioned for them to leave as well. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said, producing a reassuring nod.
M.J. Krawecki and Walt Henson produced twin scowls. Richard knew they were being extra cautious about the physical demands of his schedule these days. It had been only ten weeks since his bypass surgery, and news of Amanda’s death—and that she left behind a four-year-old child—had been a shock. The existence of one tiny little dark-eyed girl had been like a bomb going off in the middle of his recovery, his marriage, and his reelection campaign.
Walt did as Richard asked and reluctantly headed for the door, but M.J. stood in place, propping a fist on her hip and widening her stance like a gunslinger in a spaghetti Western. It almost made Richard laugh.
M.J. possessed a set of balls ten times bigger than his own. That’s why he hired her when he was minority leader in the Massachusetts Senate and brought her along when elected to the U.S. House. But recently, there had been an unpleasant rift in their partnership. She wanted to make this paternity mess disappear—she’d do anything to avoid a scandal that would jeopardize his political future. Richard wanted only his daughter, and he was willing to risk everything to get her.
M.J. didn’t understand, of course. How could she? She was in her late thirties. Married to her job. Ambitious. No kids. And in perfect health. Someone like that couldn’t grasp how precarious life really was, or how a child could change a mortal man’s priorities.
“Go on ahead, M.J. I’ll be there shortly.”
She wasn’t happy about it, but she stepped outside, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. Richard knew he’d have to give the M.J. situation some thought once he and Christina were settled into their new routine as a family. The truth was that his chief of staff had defied him. He asked her to rig the custody ruling and she refused. He hadn’t dared involve the squeaky-clean Walt in this sort of thing; the man would never condone it. This meant Richard had to take care of the matter himself.
M.J.’s snub put Richard in an uncomfortable position. Plausible deniability was always trickier when there was no middleman to take the fall, so there he was, his ass swinging in the breeze.
Richard had offered the local clerk a higher-paying post at the federal court of appeals down the road in Portland. In exchange, the clerk had changed the custody hearing date and didn’t notify the McGuinnesses, though computer records showed she had. It had worked. All the judge had seen was that the grandfather and aunt never showed up to challenge Richard’s petition for custody. He had won by default.
Richard now looked down at his hands folded on the McGuinnesses’ kitchen table. Those hands had been dirty a long while now. A man couldn’t hold elected office for more than twenty-five years without finessing the rules now and again. But that didn’t prevent him from feeling a sickened twinge in his gut every time he thought about what he’d done up here in Maine. He’d won his daughter under false pretense. What did that say about the kind of man he was, the kind of father he would be?